A 16-pound orange tabby in Ames, Iowa, did something last month that will now and forevermore have a lot of cat lovers taking care to sneeze into their sleeves.
The tabby came down with H1N1 swine flu, proving that humans ill with the flu virus should take pains not to spread it to cats as well as humans. The case surprised human and animal health authorities, who hadn’t seen a human flu virus passed to a cat before, though passionate cat lovers were shaking their heads knowingly when it was reported last week.
“If we come down with a cold, pretty soon we see our cats sneezing,” she said. Though that association could be a bit of a stretch, veterinary medical experts and zookeepers say there are a number of diseases that humans can share with the rest of the animal world, and the list seems to get a little longer every year. “This cat is a new development in the H1N1 panic,” said Kimberly May, a veterinary doctor and assistant director of professional services at the American Veterinary Medical Association.
“In general, cats are not considered susceptible to human flu viruses, but this cat got H1N1 flu from his owners. There seems to be no doubt about that, and from our understanding, it seems to be the first time a cat caught flu from a human.” The Iowa tabby is an indoor cat never allowed outside, said a report from the Illinois Department of Public Health. It had not been around any humans other than its owners, and in the last week of October, the owners came down with the flu, assumed to be H1N1. Cats now join a small list of other animals known to be susceptible to H1N1, including ferrets, domestic turkeys and pigs. Though sometimes called swine flu, the current strain does not come from swine.
No dogs are known to have caught H1N1, but that possibility can no longer be ruled out, said May.
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President Obama ordered flags be flown at half staff. Governors of many, if not all, states ordered the same.
